


Three Times

by saintsybil



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Drabble, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 21:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21083126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsybil/pseuds/saintsybil
Summary: Eddie tried to run away three times, but always returned. Short drabble about hometowns and people you love, even when you forget.





	Three Times

**Author's Note:**

> This is terribly short, but I'm reading the book currently and it's making me emotional. Mostly based on 2017/2019 movie Eddie with vague book influence.

Eddie was fifteen when he first ran away.

He packed his backpack with 3 shirts and a pair of jeans, leaving his fanny pack on the foot of his made bed, and all the medicine in the cabinet untouched.

He rode his bike to Richie's house, and snuck in through his window like he always had, tossing a rock up to his window beforehand.

Never had he come over on a weeknight.

"I'm… running away, I think. I want out of here. Out of Derry. Away from my mom." He was tearing up, holding Richie's hand and trying his hardest to speak without those tears pushing their way through.

Richie spent a long time searching for words like "you can't" and "I love you" but all he could manage was wrapping Eddie in a shaky hug, begging him silently to stay.

He came back a week later.

Eddie was seventeen when he ran away for a second time.

He told Richie when they were at the quarry together, not telling the few losers left about their secret hangout spot.

Beverly had moved almost immediately after Neibolt. Bill had moved a week ago. Ben moved around regularly anyway, so when he skipped town with his family, it didn't really shock anyone.

Eddie felt like it was his time.

This time he saved enough money to take the train out of Maine, leaving three in the morning that night.

"But what about last time?" Was what came to Richie's lips finally, after two years worrying about Kaspbrak.

"I'm not sure."

Running back to Derry? Your mother?

"I wish there was an easy answer to that."

They stared at the sky, bright with stars. Their love was silent, touching hands or looking into eachothers eyes.

They shared their first kiss that night. It was cold, but sweet. The first time either of them had kissed another boy.

They were too scared to touch each other again. Sitting silently together by the water.

Eddie came back a week later.

Eddie ran away for a third and final time when he was eighteen.

He no longer lived in Derry. He hadn't spoken to that Richie Tozier kid in a while. In fact, after moving to New York, he hadn't thought of anyone back in Derry. Not fully, anyway.

He went to college, now having a reason to stay, but as he packed up suitcases and boxes, hearing his mother cry from the living room, he thought of Richie.

He thought of the quarry, and the ladder to his friend's window, staring at the sky with the soft lap of water at his knees.

For the first time in a while he wondered where Richie Tozier was.

He threw his inhaler into a toiletries bag and zipped it up.

He wouldn't think of Richie again for 20 years, just about.


End file.
